Many international music sites are talking about SoundCloud, the most known music streaming service nowadays. To those few who do not know it, SoundCloud allows anyone to upload and share their own songs.

Latest news about this service reported it is in serious financial difficulties and is today supposed it should continue all of its operations for another 80 days only. The news, commented by SoundCloud without denying it entirely, comes after the dismissal of 173 company employees last week and the closure of San Francisco and London offices.

SoundCloud has existed since 2008 and within the competitive music streaming services industry has always maintained its own identity and was originality compared to competitors such as Spotify and Apple Music.

The main purpose of SoundCloud is (or, was) to share music from emerging, semi-professional or even amateur artists. In addition to music, it hosts a lot of podcasts and recordings of radio broadcasts. It’s also used by very famous people – the most famous is the rapper Kanye West – but it’s more common that users listen to the latest EP from a semi-known band they read on. It’s free but has two different monthly subscriptions.

For this reason, SoundCloud has a very loyal user base, and for many artists, it is a basic essential service, because it is the easiest way to promote their music.

Unfortunately, things are not going well for SoundCloud from an economical point of view: according to founders Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, spending cuts will allow the company to operate until the very beginning of the next financial quarter, less than 80 days.

According to TechCrunch’s rebuild, Ljung and Wahlforss are looking for new investors. The news website also reported – based on employee testimonials – stories of a controversial use of the company’s financial resources, such as buying Apple laptops and headphones for new employees and large group lunches.

SoundCloud responded to TechCrunch’s article saying it contains many inaccuracies and for that reason would not comment on it in detail. However, it was admitted that the company was “fully funded until the fourth quarter” and it was said that the management is convinced that cuts will ensure long-term survival.

If SoundCloud is closing in less than three months, it will probably mean the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of hours of songs, podcasts, and recordings. In particular, it would be a problem for young hip hop artists, the most active community on the web site.

Bruce Springsteen, during one of his latest concert, played Lorde Royals’ cover. He did it with incredible naturalness, leaving people in front of the monitors (and lucky eyewitnesses) to want all the covers in the world to be as successful. The good news is that there are some of them: below you find five that are worth listening to on the best covers Youtube channel.

Royals – Bruce Springsteen sings Lorde

Here it is. Inexplicably perfect, it seems like a piece that the Boss has been carrying around for years; because he sings it as if he belonged to him.

Satellite of Love – Morrissey sings Lou Reed

From the meeting of two “music giants”, which is, first of all, a tribute to the recently disappeared Lou Reed, a moving cover is coming out. Not just for Morrissey fans.

Ready to Start – Tears for Fears song Arcade Fire

Tears for Fears take one of the most rock songs of The Suburbs and turn it into a lush triumph of electronics and bows.

Age of Consent – Built to Spill song New Order

Quite spectacular: Built to Spill make the audience crazy with this cover.

Once Upon a Dream – Lana del Rey sings The Sleeping Beauty

Do you remember the romantic song sung by Aurora in Disney’s The Sleeping Beauty, when she meets the prince? Lana del Rey plays the soundtrack in quite a sublime manner.

Understanding how to promote your own music is not easy because today the market is constantly changing. To concretely emerge you must also deal with marketing, communication, image, video, contracts, etc.

In this article, we will try to provide guidelines that can help new artists to navigate in the multitude of aspects of the music market, such as focusing on the most important things.

You must have a very solid and reliable product

Having a good “product”, a great song, is the heart of your artistic activity, and it is important that every detail is in its place. If you are unable to get a professional sound, you will be excluded from the mainstream circuit. So it’s important to engage, study, and improve musically every day.

You are your music

Is essential that your music says a lot about you. So when you promote it, you become the product. If you start seeing things from this perspective, everything changes. If you become the Brand, you can do anything.

Learn how to communicate

Being able to communicate effectively is a dowry, but you can study some methods and significantly improve the impact you have on readers and fans. Being useful and synthetic in your posts or press releases is essential.

Find out your target

The next step is to know who you are referring to. There is nothing worse than talking to the wrong people, those who do not understand you. Find out exactly what your music genre is and find your perfect niche.

Promote your music on your website

Create your website, but remember to keep it updated constantly day after day; otherwise your fans will stop visiting you. If you do not have much to write, such as dates and places of your tour, a good idea may be to create a blog or integrate it with Instagram and Soundcloud.

Use social networks

We all use social media. If you are not on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Soundcloud is as if you did not exist. These tools are indispensable to promote your music. Learning to communicate on these platforms is paramount.

Create viral videos

Creating viral videos is not that easy, but you have to start experimenting. Be yourself, impact with the camera is not easy but starts doing videos being as natural as possible. Use multiple distribution channels: first of all Youtube, but also Vimeo and Facebook.

Digital distribution

Today you can sell your discs and promote your music activity on your own, at a very low cost, through digital distribution platforms. You can easily distribute your works to iTunes, Beatport, Spotify and all other digital stores without having to rely on large networks.

Crowdfunding

An excellent opportunity to fund your music recordings is crowd funding. The reference platforms are IndieGoGo and Kickstarter. Establish a project release date, evaluate the amount you want to achieve, carefully review the description of your page and make special gifts to those who will fund you. Crowdfunding can help you a lot, especially if you can be innovative.

Look for influencers

On the net, there are bloggers who have a large number of followers. If they were to share a video, they would immediately increase visits to your pages. That’s why it’s important to involve the Influencers in your communication strategy.